Gearing up for a world of teeny-weeny cell phones and other chip-rich, handheld toys, Big Blue today announced its acquisition of a company that designs chips for just such gadgets.
IBM laid out US$180 million in cash for CommQuest Technologies, Inc.,an Encinitas, California, firm specializing in chip designs for cell phones and wireless communications devices, the companies announced this morning.
"The merger will speed development of a new generation of multi-function, low cost, mobile information appliances, such as single-chip, watch-size cellular phones and products that combine cell phone, email and Internet access functions in a single handheld package," said Mike Attardo, general manager, IBM Microelectronics Division, in a teleconference this morning.
CommQuest recently announced a breakthrough chipset technology that allows cell phone manufacturers to produce a "world phone," said Hussein El-Ghoroury, president and CEO of the company.
Based on CommQuest's GSM triband chipset, the phones will be able to roam among all three Global System for Mobile communications frequency bands. GSM is the de facto standard for worldwide cellular communications, with some 66 million users in 110 countries. All three frequency bands are common to Europe and much of Asia; the United States uses one GSM band and other competing technologies.
For its part, IBM will provide CommQuest with silicon germanium and copper chip technologies to design more efficient, high-speed chips for wireless devices. The companies expect that silicon germanium will become the core chip technology in a wide variety of handheld communications and computing devices connected to voice and data networks.
"The joining of our patented CASP (Communication Application Specific Processor) design architecture with IBM’s advanced semiconductor technologies will drive major advancements in leading edge wireless and digital applications," El-Ghoroury said in a statement.
IBM has no plans to manufacture phones, but will focus on supplying chipsets to end-product manufacturers, said Attardo. The companies will also broaden efforts to sell CommQuest products through IBM’s sales network.
CommQuest was founded in 1991 and has about 200 employees. It will become a unit of IBM’s Microelectronics Division, but will retain a high level of autonomy, similar to how Tivoli and Lotus - two of IBM's more notable acquisitions - now operate, said Attardo. El-Ghoroury said the company expects to expand on "the same order of magnitude" as Tivoli and Lotus.
"Our intent is to leave them intact, and provide CommQuest with as much access to IBM's technology, sales and infrastructure to accelerate their already aggressive business plan," said Atardo. "We'll leave a good thing alone."
